


A Certain Strength

by FarenMaddox



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-07
Updated: 2015-07-07
Packaged: 2018-04-08 04:50:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4291407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FarenMaddox/pseuds/FarenMaddox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurogane unexpectedly encounters some familiar faces, and doesn't react too well</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Certain Strength

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zelinxia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelinxia/gifts).



A hotel.

A real actual hotel.

Not a campsite, not a pallet on someone’s floor, not a nest in the back of a carnival wagon— they were sleeping in _beds_.  There was a claw-footed tub and their own toilet and room service.  There was gaudy crown moulding and a large fountain in the foyer downstairs.

This new world was called Gloriana and Fai was kind of hoping they could stay for a while.

They had a huge pile of money that had up till now been relatively useless; composed as it was of spare change and leftovers from a few dozen worlds, it was never worth anything when they came to a new place.  But in Gloriana resided a man who was wealthy and old and bored, and he’d been fascinated by them and their totally foreign everything.  He didn’t seem to have any idea that they considered their leftover currencies and knick knacks to be little more than souvenirs.  He’d offered to buy it from them, and named a figure that seemed altogether reasonable.  It would get them a room for the night and buy them all dinner so they could figure out where to find work the next day.

Fai had scented blood in the water.  He’d hemmed and hawed and playacted, while the other two sat quietly in the background, and made it seem like their stuff was actually important to them.  Stressed that it was rare and unusual and therefore of value to them personally.

The old man had chuckled, said he knew Fai was no fool, and immediately offered a sum of money that had left Fai speechless and gaping like a fish.  Syaoran had hurriedly accepted the deal before Kurogane could ask why he’d pay that kind of cash for their useless shit.

The hotel had been Fai’s idea.  As he’d ever so logically pointed out, the money wasn’t going to do them any good once they left Gloriana, so they might as well spend it.  And after they all took steaming hot baths and had their lunch delivered right to their door, the other two had finally admitted that Fai was right.

Damn straight.

So now they were planning to celebrate their good fortune by seeking out a nice restaurant and getting a bottle of wine to toast the occasion.  Well, Fai and Kurogane were.  Syaoran had found a copy of his friend Ryuoh in the lobby and as one would expect, they’d hit it off immediately and were currently holed up in a couple of armchairs in a common area, with a chessboard and a pile of snacks, Mokona bouncing from shoulder to shoulder suggesting moves and stealing food.  Best leave them to it.

Fai tried to contain his secret glee at the idea that he and Kurogane were sneaking out alone.  They were going on a date.  Not that Fai was going to _tell_ Kurogane that they were on a date.  But they _were_.

It was getting on toward evening and most of the horse-drawn buggies that had earlier crowded the streets were safely parked, leaving only the cabbies for hire still driving about.  They briefly considered hailing one and asking the driver to recommend a destination, but then they spotted a little café with sidewalk seating and the charm of it was too much for Fai to resist.  It had been ages since he’d been in a world that knew how to make a cake, but this seemed promising.  He was totally eating cake for dinner and drinking too much wine and getting sloppy-affectionate on Kurogane, _because_.

Fai’s attempt to wheedle Kurogane into pulling out a chair for him and ordering on his behalf was met with Kurogane’s very _manly_ version of the “bitch please” look, but he _did_ wave away their server when the wine was brought out so that he could pour for them himself.  He even deigned to nibble unenthusiastically at a morsel of Fai’s cake just to make him stop talking about how good it was.

They played footsie under the table.  Kurogane smiled _twice_.  Best night ever.

A couple was shown to the table that was right next to theirs.  Fai glanced over and couldn’t help feeling happy at the sight of them.  They were all over each other, flush with youth and happiness, and the gentleman pulled out the lady’s chair and helped her take off her jacket without even being asked.  The woman was beautiful, Fai noticed, with a wealth of shining dark hair spilling over her shoulders, her skin porcelain-fine, the shade of blue of her dress setting her off perfectly.

The guy was nearly as tall and broad as Fai’s own companion, and even his hair seemed similar, with spiky—

Fai stopped breathing.

Kurogane’s attention had been on his plate, and getting the last few bites of his pasta.  He noticed now that Fai’s chatter had cut off and looked up sharply.  “What?”

He looked over at the couple.  His face went blank, for a moment, and then—

“Kuro-sama,” Fai said desperately, heart pounding.  His mouth was dry with fear, but fear of what, he didn’t know.

Kurogane surged to his feet, and Fai leapt up right after him, reaching out to take his arm, to lead him away, to calm him down, to talk, to hold him, to do whatever it was he was supposed to do right now if only he knew what that was.

Kurogane side-stepped, shied away from him.

“I’ll see you back at the hotel,” he said.  Fai felt like someone plucked out his heart when he heard the hollow, lost voice, and he curled his hands over the wounded feeling in his chest.  He couldn’t breathe.

“I— should I—?”

“No,” Kurogane mumbled, and then he was gone, striding down the street, and when he turned the corner Fai saw him break into a run.

Fai sat back down abruptly, feeling sick, staring at the crumbs on his plate and the half-empty glass of wine with the smudge of his lips at the rim.  He should probably stop thinking about what he’d just consumed or it was going to come back up.  He took a deep breath and let it out slow.

“Excuse me,” someone said.

Fai dragged his attention back to the world around him very slowly.  He turned.  The woman, the beautiful woman with the blue dress and dark hair was looking at him with worry.

“Are you okay?  We aren’t trying to be nosy, we just . . . Weren’t sure . . .”

“Thank you, I’m fine,” Fai said, shoving a smile onto his face with the ease of long practice.

The man was scowling, and _oh_ , even his _scowl_ was the same, and Fai didn’t know what to do.

“There’s something weird going on here,” he pronounced assertively.

“Darling,” the woman said in a repressive tone, “it’s not our—”

“That guy looks just like me.”  His face took on a wounded look when the woman glared at him, trying to make him shut up.  “What?  He _does_.”

“I don’t really know how I could possibly explain this,” Fai said quietly, using his fork to form the cake crumbs into a swirl that was slowly resolving itself into the design on Sakura’s feathers.  “He does look like you.”

“Is he . . . me?” the man asked awkwardly.  “I mean, do I have a secret twin or is there a parallel universe or what?”

“Um, short answer?”

“Please.”

“Yes.”

The bold, unadorned affirmative answer caught him by surprise, mouth hanging open, looking so eerily like Kurogane that he almost teased him for wearing such a dumb expression.

“So, that was— was—”

“He’s . . . what’s your name?”

“Eh?  Kaji.  My wife is Kazumi.”

“Madam,” Fai said grandly to her before answering.  “Kaji, there are other worlds.  And in one of them, that man is your son.”

Kaji had been leaning forward, straining toward Fai, eyes burning with interest in a way that Fai knew far, far too well.  Now he sat back in his chair suddenly, looking stunned.  Unexpectedly, he reached over to Kazumi and scooped up her hand in both of his.  Her cheeks looked impossibly pale, and Fai felt as though they ought to get her lying down before she passed out.  Kaji’s whole attention had shifted over to her.  His thumbs stroked over her hand, and he made a soft, wordless noise, deep in his throat.

Maybe Fai should leave them alone.  That news obviously didn’t please them.  He needed to go find Kurogane, the need to go find him was like an itch under his skin.  He didn’t so much as twitch, because he knew how to control himself, but something in the back of his head was yammering, _findhimhurryfindKuroganeholdhimit’sgoingtobeokayKurosama_ —

“I’m pregnant,” the lady said quietly.  Her long, dark eyelashes swept up and her dark eyes met Fai’s boldly.

“O-oh,” Fai responded in surprise, his eyes immediately flicking to her belly, which was still flat.  “Congratulations.”

“This is our third try,” she went on, her eyes never leaving him.  “I’ve already miscarried twice.  My doctor has told me that I am incapable of bearing children.  He says we will lose him.”

Fai felt his breath caught in his chest.  So much pain.  There was so much pain in that.  For this couple, and his heart ached for them, but it spiraled out further and led him to think of Kurogane’s own, real parents in Suwa.  Had this happened to them, too?  Was Kurogane meant to be one of three or four?  It was only too easy, _only too easy,_ to picture him as a little boy, rough-and-tumble with a pair of older brothers to knock him around or older sisters to turn him into a dress-up doll when they played at keeping house.  He clenched his hand into a fist over his chest and tried to breathe even though he wanted to burst into tears.

“You won’t.”

He didn’t mean to speak, almost didn’t recognize his own voice.  It sounded hollow and twisted.

The couple was gaping at him.  He wondered what he looked like.  He felt full of . . . Of many things, truly.  Pain and protectiveness and love and determination.  Maybe his eyes were glowing, lit up with magic that was screaming for release.

“If there is a bargain to be made or a price to be paid, I will do it,” he said strongly.  “But I don’t believe it will be necessary.  I think you will not lose him, not this time.”  His eyes rested on her belly again, wondering if there was a copy of Kurogane in there, wondering, his heart hammering, if lost out there somewhere just _waiting_ for this child was a copy of _him_.

“We were going to name him Youou,” Kaji blurted out.  Both of them looked at Fai queerly, like they were waiting for his permission, but he didn’t under—

“Oh,” he said softly, curling his hand over his chest again.  “That’s a wonderful name,” he said, inadequately.

When Kurogane had explained to him that Tomoyo knew his true name and no one else, Fai had quieted the voice of jealousy inside of him and accepted that.  Tomoyo was the bridge between the child of Suwa and the man of Shirasagi.  He needed her to know it, the same way he needed it to stay with her alone.  Fai could understand that.  He still asked them to call him Fai, after all, and he wouldn’t have ever told them his original name if he’d been given the choice.

But just now, he wished desperately that he had learned that name.  That he could offer that kind of assurance to this couple.

“The name I know him by is not the name he was born with,” Fai said carefully.  “And if he was here, he’d tell you to name your child whatever you wanted to.”  He tipped a crooked smile at them.  “Actually, he’d say ‘name him whatever the hell you want, it’s got nothing to do with me’ but then he’d secretly try to find out what you named him to see if he approved.”

That squeezed a laugh out of them, and it relieved Fai to see them stop looking so pale and shocked.

“If it helps, I think he’d like the name Youou,” he said, but he was looking at the corner of the street that Kurogane had turned down when he ran off.  There was probably no way for Fai to find him out on the streets.  The best thing to do would be to wait for him at the hotel.  He’d come back there at some point.

“If you’ve met his parents, how is it you never learned his name?” Kaji asked suddenly, skeptically.

“Mm?  I never met them. I only guessed because of how much you look alike.”

Fai tore his eyes away from the corner.

“His parents were killed before his eyes when he was only a boy.  That’s why he didn’t stay.  He was . . .”

They both looked shocked again.

“You should go find him, then,” Kazumi said, and let go of her husband’s hand for the first time so she could reach out and take Fai’s.  “He needs you, doesn’t he?”

“Need?” Fai said hoarsely.  _Kuro-sama doesn’t need anybody_.  It was on the tip of his tongue.  Then it hit him again, all over again, the way it always did—like a sack of bricks to the face.  Whether or not he needed him Kurogane kept _wanting_ him and going to such ridiculous lengths to hang onto him.  What did it mean, to need a person, anyway?  Did it mean you _couldn’t_ live without them, or just that you didn’t want to?  “I think . . . he might,” Fai murmured, squeezing Kazumi’s hand gratefully.

He stood up.  He got out his billfold to pay for their meal, trying to flag down the busy _garcon_ , taking a moment to feel just a _little_ pouty because he'd planned to make Kurogane do it—

“Just go,” Kaji said, nodding his head down the street.  “We need some way of saying thank you.”

“Thank you?” Fai said blankly. _For what?_   He wanted to ask, but Kazumi’s hand was resting carefully on the soft plane of her stomach, and he didn’t.

As he turned to walk away, he suddenly spun on his heel and turned back.  “He . . . You’d be so proud of him,” he blurted out.  “He’s one of the best men I’ve ever known.  Ever.”

They smiled at him, and nodded, and anything more would have been too much, it was already too much, so Fai just hurried away, unable to help his need to scour the streets even though going back to the hotel would be so much easier.  He wanted to _find_ him.

 

* * *

 

It had been a long time since that red veil had fallen over his eyes.  He’d thought it was gone.  He’d really believed that he’d grown, changed, become better and more controlled.  He didn’t lose himself when he got into a fight, and anger could be marshaled into doing what he needed to do instead of killing everyone.  He’d thought the red veil was gone.

It fell over him when he saw them.  He’d heard Fai talking but he couldn’t—he _couldn’t_ , he was—

He had to run.  He didn’t want to hurt anyone.

He ran past tall gaudy buildings, past crowded too-bright restaurants, pounded over cobblestone and brick, dodged horse apples and stinking puddles.  His feet carried him past a horse stable and some instinct made him turn past it, shifting direction and looking for the pastures where they must exercise the horses or turn them out to feed.  He found not just a horse pasture but a wide field of tall grass, untamed at the edge of the city.  He leapt the fence and waded into it deep, his sword springing from his hand without a thought, and he began recklessly slashing in every direction.  His sharp, martial cries, trained into him and as much a part of the movement as the swing of his arms, echoed into the dark sky.  A couple of horses out to pasture raised their heads and looked at him balefully before closing their eyes and dozing off again.

He shouted, and struck, and struck, and struck.  Every head of grass bore a demon’s eyes and every swish of a fallen stalk against his arm felt like a splash of blood.  He was stuck there, stuck in a time long ago.  The day that things burned, the day that things died, the day he’d first experienced the red curtain that made him blind and deaf and made him kill.

He thought he’d learned how to put it away. He was wrong.

What was he supposed to do?  He never thought he’d see their faces—he should have prepared for the possibility— he didn’t know what he should do, seeing them—

He stopped swinging when his arms started to burn with exhaustion.  He kicked his way through the oozing mess of cut grass and went to lean heavily on the fence to the horse pasture, dragging in deep breaths.  The air smelled of the grass and the manure in the pasture.  He let his head hang low.

A strange sensation.  Something pulling his hair.

“Hey!” he roared, swiping at the horse with one arm.  It danced away, snorting, and Kurogane would swear it was laughing.  He gingerly felt the top of his head and found it sticky with horse slobber, his hair pulled into a slimy sideways-pointing spike.

He fell against the fence again, hardly caring.  He was also grass-stained and clammy with drying sweat.  He took a deep breath, held it, and blew it out.

It wasn’t gone.  But it didn’t control him anymore.  He hadn’t hurt anyone, hadn’t even destroyed anything but some grass.  He’d let it go on his own, without any help.

Yeah.  He was going to be okay.

Footsteps were swishing behind him, but he didn’t turn around.  He knew exactly who was there.  A stranger would have said something by now.  He watched the horses running together at the opposite end of the pasture and waited for Fai to come lean against the fence beside him.  He didn’t say anything.  He waited to see what Fai would say.

A hand softly patted at his horse-slobber hair.

“Oh, Kuro-sama,” Fai sighed, sounding amused.  His hand fell on top of Kurogane’s, twined their fingers together, and then tugged.  Silent, he pulled him away from the fence and started leading him back toward the centre of the city.  It didn’t take long for Kurogane to begin walking alongside him rather than letting him lead, but Fai didn’t let go of his hand.

Neither of them spoke.  Kurogane didn’t know what to say about this, and it seemed that for once Fai didn’t either.  They went all the way back to their hotel room that way.  Syaoran had the room adjoining, but the lights weren’t on and they couldn’t tell whether he was asleep or still downstairs with Ryuoh.  It seemed best to keep being quiet, just in case.

Fai turned the light on, finally letting go of his hand, and then turned around to look him up and down.  “You are filthy,” he pronounced.

Kurogane scowled at him.  “Then I’ll go take a bath.”

“Please do,” Fai smirked.

Kurogane stalked into the bathroom, annoyed for a reason he couldn’t name.  What was he expecting Fai to do?  If the man tried to coddle him or pretend to know how Kurogane felt, he’d get a punch in the jaw for his trouble, and they both knew it.  But somehow, it was making him annoyed that Fai wasn’t— wasn’t—

Acting more like a lover?  Holding him, murmuring to him, comforting him?  Was that what Kurogane wanted?  He didn’t have the first clue what he actually wanted, so it was stupid to get annoyed about Fai not doing it.

He kicked his grass-stained clothes into a corner and sank down in the tub.  He tipped his head back with a sigh.  He wanted to wash the horse spit out of his hair, but first he wanted to try to relax.  He wasn’t going to let this keep him up all night.  Those people . . . They were just _people_.  They wore familiar faces, but they didn’t know him, and he needed to forget about them.

He heard the door open, but he kept his eyes closed. Fai probably just wanted his dirty clothes.

A scrape on the floor.  His eyes popped open and met a bright blue pair looking down at him.  Fai’s upside-down face was calm, his lips curved into a gentle smile.  Kurogane started to sit up, got that way long enough to see that Fai had dragged a footstool over to the tub and sat down, then Fai pushed him back down.

“Shhh,” he admonished, and his cold hands slid over Kurogane’s shoulders and dug in.

Kurogane was so dumbfounded by it that he just laid still and allowed Fai to massage him.  Fai’s fingers slowly warmed, and the tension in Kurogane’s muscles began to dissipate.  After a few minutes, Fai worked his hands under Kurogane’s head and insistently raised it and tipped him forward.  He washed Kurogane’s hair.  Still surprised by all this, Kurogane didn’t protest.  The slow movements of Fai’s fingers and the rivulets of warm water through his hair felt good.  Soothing.

He heard Fai’s breath catch more than once, like he was going to speak, but he never did.

Just when Kurogane figured he was clean enough and started to think about getting out, Fai suddenly stood up.

“Stay there,” he said, draining the water from the tub.  Kurogane glared at him as gooseflesh prickled up on his skin.  Then Fai started running fresh, clean water, refilling the tub with heat.  At the same time, he started stripping off his own clothes.  It wasn’t as though Kurogane didn’t normally appreciate the sight of the mage naked, but right now he was a little confused.  He frowned up at him.  Fai still said nothing, turning away from his frown to turn the water off.  When Fai stepped into the bathtub, Kurogane drew his legs up to make room.

“Oi, mage, what—”

Fai sat facing him, leaned forward, drew him into a kiss.  Then he turned around and leaned backward into Kurogane, waiting to be embraced.  Fumbling, still confused, Kurogane wrapped his arms around Fai and waited for an explanation.  Fai didn’t seem to have one, though.  They just leaned back into the enveloping warmth of the water and relaxed.  The ends of Fai’s hair were getting wet, but the rest of it was the usual bird’s nest, resting against his shoulder and tickling at his cheek.

“Seriously,” he said after a few minutes.  “What?”

Fai sighed gustily.  “I don’t like not knowing where you are,” he said softly.  “Sorry.”

Kurogane couldn’t really argue with that, since he felt the same way.  Out of sight could just as easily mean “in life threatening danger” as anything, in their experience.  All of them had started to relax, started to heal, from their ordeals, but they weren't what you'd call stable yet.  The paranoia hadn’t gone away, might never.  Kurogane tightened his arms around his companion and turned his face into Fai’s hair for a moment.  He breathed in the smell of him.

He finally felt like he could ask.  “Did you talk to them?”

Fai waited a moment before answering, waiting to see if Kurogane would take back his curiosity.  He didn’t.

“Yes, I did.”

“Did they—”  He stopped, because he didn’t know what he was trying to ask.

“She’s pregnant.  They told me—they told me what they were going to name the baby, and I don’t want to tell you what it was.  Because then I’ll know if it’s yours.  But they’re going to have a baby soon, and I thought . . .”

Kurogane closed his eyes, tried to fight the anger that was still his first way of defending himself from the way he felt when he didn’t want to feel.  He didn’t need to be angry.  He didn’t need to run away from this stuff.  He had needed that, before.  He’d needed to keep himself locked up because he was alone, and he didn’t need anything but the anger when he was alone.  Fai hadn’t cared, Fai was the enemy, Fai ran away, Fai lied.

Not anymore.

Not now.  Not after all they’d done, and been.  Now they were naked in this bathtub, and not just because they didn’t have clothes on.  It was more than that.  It was the way Fai’s hair smelled, it was the way he’d talked to those two people and it didn’t make Kurogane upset that Fai thought it was his place to do so.  It was the way they’d only said a few sentences in the past couple of hours and that was fine, even for the guy who couldn’t shut up.

“You think their kid is going to be me, huh?” he mumbled, sitting up a little, dragging Fai up with him.  “S’fine. I guess.  You knowing my name, I mean.  Just don’t tell anyone, or talk about it or anything.”

“They seemed like . . . wonderful people,” Fai said wistfully.

Kurogane almost wanted to knock his head off his shoulders.  Wonderful?  What a stupid word.  His parents were . . .  They’d been an entire world, for him.  He didn’t have any way to communicate that.  He wasn’t that good with words.

“Yeah,” he muttered instead.

“They bought us dinner,” Fai said with a grin.

Kurogane couldn’t help snorting at that.  “How do you always get out of paying for things?”

Fai just laughed.  “Let’s get out, okay?  The water’s getting cold.”

And Kurogane’s feet were shriveled and felt disgusting.  He stood up quickly, before Fai could, and let the water that sluiced off him pour onto Fai.  His still mostly-dry hair went flat and soaked.  He sputtered and screeched like a wounded cat.

They insulted each other cheerfully as they dried off and located fresh undergarments.  By unspoken consent, they were heading straight to bed and didn’t bother with further clothing.  They curled up together in the bed and Fai rested his head against Kurogane’s chest, his damp hair cold.

“Kuro-sama?” he said quietly.

“Mm.”

“You’d make them proud, and you know you would.  You’re a good man.  And you took everything you learned from them and made yourself into a good father for the kids when they needed you, too.”

“Tch.”  He was never going to admit that this embarrassed him.  Never.

“You know what else?”

“What?” he groaned.  Couldn’t the idiot just go to sleep?

“It’s okay if you’re sad anyway.  Just because you laid them to rest— it doesn't mean it doesn't hurt.  Sometimes . . . Sometimes things just hurt, and that’s okay.  Don’t— you don’t have to hide that.”

The way Fai's voice caught in his throat made Kurogane draw him in tight against his body, like he could squeeze the grief out of him.  Yeah, of course Fai knew what it meant to lose someone.  He needed to hear Kurogane say that it was okay for _him_ to hurt over it, too.  “Tch.  I know,” he muttered.  He hoped that would be enough.  He was exhausted.

“Oh.  Okay.”

“You didn’t talk for a whole hour.  Dare you to do it again.”

Fai pinched the skin on his side.  “Meanie.”

“Just go to sleep, would you?”

Fai sighed gustily, breath warm on Kurogane’s skin, and let it rest.

 


End file.
